


you were light

by averytinyvoid



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Angst, Bittersweet, Bittersweet Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Multiple Timelines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:36:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24471412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/averytinyvoid/pseuds/averytinyvoid
Summary: this place was once you and me and us and we were made of countless possibilities but we chose to be impossible.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji & Bokuto Koutarou, Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23





	you were light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts), [modzarellahunt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/modzarellahunt/gifts).



> i am so sorry in advance. i suggest you to listen to 'mendarah' by nadin amizah as you read this. happy reading!

akaashi keiji has learned that there are songs that know you better than you know yourself. he has learned that some poems sound too much like an old friend. he has learned that addiction doesn’t only come in a form of malicious chemicals disguised as healers.

for some people it is the smell of the ocean. for some people it is the way the old books with yellow pages touch their fingers like a welcoming handshake. for some people it is wrapping blankets around their sore bones to feel the warmth of a hug because their nights have always been hard and lonely.

and for him, for him it is now. it is walking the steps of what they used to be like he is walking on a tight rope. it is looking at the traffic lights and food booths and people chatter and how everything stays the same. it is standing between them with empty wish that they aren’t the only things that don’t change. it is walking inside a coffee shop with white roof. it is ordering the same drink— americano —and how it always feels like watching every person in his life left at the same time. it is now, sitting here, on the same table, where they should never say goodbye.

* * *

"koutaro, tell me where we are going, again?”

“to a pretty place, keiji!!"

“funny. don’t try to deceive me. if we are going to that shitty place where you play billiards with your friends, i am going home now. i have to finish another book."

“no, i'm not trying to deceive you, keiji. come on.”

bokuto koutaro has so many signatures. black-and-white hair, leather jacket, grey shirt. he sniffs his food before he tastes it. two stirs before he sips his latte. jumping around while waiting for the bus. always laugh like it is the one thing that could save the world. dances to any song like he owns the music itself.

and holding akaashi's wrist like he wasn’t the one to let go.

“are we going to the top of a twenty-storey building to see city lights, koutaro?”

“no no, light-sucker. but there are lights there, too. i promise. pretty ones.”

bokuto koutaro is never a fan of a hundred colors of buildings lights under the dark, polluted sky. the only lights he approves to be within the sky hovering this city of smoke is the lights that burst into gazillions of sparkling and firey dust because they look like magic. the only magic human can put along the stars and the moon even with the false hope to win over them. he told akaashi— and akaashi looked at bokuto's eyes, fireworks and stars and the sky and the moon —despite knowing that their efforts to compete with the universe are useless, the fact that humans keep trying like they will live forever is the one thing that makes it worth to live by. 

bokuto loves fireworks and will always be under them in the name of celebrating humanity. he loves living and breathing as much as he believes that death is never supposed to be a threat.

“quit giving me weird nicknames, kou. you said ‘pretty’ twice. something good happen today?”

“you are not good with nicknames, keiji. of course i said pretty twice. i’m going to say it as much as i can until we reach the place.”

“and why is that?”

“because I am bringing a pretty person to a pretty place. the ‘pretty’ word is the spell.”

the dim street lights weren’t enough to hide akaashi’s cheeks, reddish and warm.

“so, you mean if you stop saying ‘pretty’, both the person and the place aren’t going to be pretty anymore?”

“well, sort of. hahahahaha."

“kou, you're a jerk.”

akaashi is a man who loves city lights and frozen spotlights at concerts and plays. he loves congratulating life by witnessing arts. he loves creating as much as he believes that death should never be an escape.

* * *

white roof. light-brown brick walls with self-made paintings and flowers in small vases made from glass hanging beside every window protected by black frames. wooden tables that feel so warm it makes you remember about being a child. smell of coffee and milk and sugar and everything bitter and sweet all at once. owl’s nest, it is the name of the café.

there were lights. dangling from the ceilings, swing a little every time the door opens, taking turns winking at every heart.

fragile.

and beautiful.

“fine, you are right. the lights are pretty. the whole place is pretty.” akaashi smiled.

“yeah! i know, right? i couldn’t wait to show everything to you, keiji. i found this place when i got lost a week ago.”

bokuto was just as enchanted as akaashi was. but he was always a bit of a distraction, sometimes too much of one, and akaashi wished he could have a little bit of self-control because now the lights and the paintings and the flowers have one heck of a competitor in a form of leather jacket, grey shirt and black-and-white hair and a pair of eyes no gold can compare.

* * *

this is supposed to be a place to heal.

this is supposed to be a place where enduring life struggles become easier.

this is supposed to be a place where broken hearts come to mend. this is supposed to be a place where people make beautiful strings of memories to be placed at the back of their mind.

this place was once all that.

* * *

“b-but it’s working. you told me the medication is working.”

bokuto snickered. “yeah, well, it was working. not now. not anymore.”

“no, kou, you are just giving up.”

“maybe i am.”

a few seconds of silence that didn’t feel like silence, it felt like truth screaming into his ears and akaashi wish he could be deaf for one time.

bokuto's eyes were so tired and numb. “i am so tired of enduring.”

akaashi was mad. at bokuto. at himself. at cancer cells at stupid pills at science at doctors at the horrible smell of hospitals. at the world. at life’s irony. at everything.

and the walls weren’t light brown, the flowers were all rotten and the lights were dead black and americano never felt this bitter and his heart was heavy, heavy, a thousand pounds and more.

and you-are-better-off-without-me shouldn’t feel this right. and yet repeating the sentence in any circumstance always sound like a mistake. a mistake that takes in the right place, so right it tore the whole two hearts at once.

bokuto was hurting so much. and akaashi was sorry, wishing all the sorry(s) in the world would be enough because he was hurting too, but couldn’t say so and words betrayed him too of all times.

* * *

this place was once a whole of catching breaths after running through the first snow. this place was once a cloistered corner of laughing their lungs out and endless conspiracy theories and pictures that always look blurred because both of them can never stay still. this place was once where rainy days and two heads looking out through black-framed window watching tiny droplets with similar amazed expressions can always be found.

akaashi looks out through the same black-framed window, his coffee untouched and cold. this place was once you, koutaro, he thinks. this place was once me. this place was once you and me and us and we were made of countless possibilities but we chose to be impossible.

the sun is getting itself ready to set and it will be one year being apart and his heart still fails to unbreak.

his fingers are also ready to finally reach his cup but outside, outside, right at the same millisecond, bokuto was there, standing; black-and-white hair and leather jacket and grey shirt and tired eyes and the sun is so pretty, pretty, pretty and sad.

this place was once all things pretty he could remember. this place is now where two pair of eyes meet each other and decided that three seconds that feel like forever will be enough and if time wasted on more than that it would feel like a sin.

this place still tastes like an addiction for both but they choose to be impossible.

bokuto is outside. akaashi is inside. and bokuto's soul is healing but he still feels like a wreckage.

akaashi raises his cup, at the end, and there bokuto is, taking one step ahead. and another one. and another one another one another one until not even his shadow is left.

nothing. nothing. and it is the sun tilting its head and the clouds saying goodbye.

* * *

5.00 p.m. i miss you like it is the last possible thing, kou.

5.00 p.m. i miss you like it is the last thing i could endure, keiji.

**Author's Note:**

> this work is dedicated to my mutuals on twitter who encouraged me to write again and again. i almost giving up at writing but you guys reminds me that even with my limited vocabulary and messy word pick and dumb description, i can still create something. a huge thanks to kak vo, thank you for putting up with my JHSKJAHSKJAHSKJA KAK AKU BUTUH SARAN every single time and to nad, my broest bro, for always hearing my silly stories and (somehow) be excited. 
> 
> i hope everyone loves this story like i do, and if you do please please consider leaving a comment on this story. or you can yell at me on twitter.
> 
> thanks for taking the time to read this!


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